Mr. Marjoribanks and Mr. Firth performed the difficult and somewhat
ungrateful task of moving and seconding the Address in the House of Commons, with the usual measure of success, —the latter, perhaps, with an ability beyond the ordinary mark, and thereupon the debate was adjourned to Wednesday. Sir Stafford Northcote resumed it in a very dull speech, in which he exhorted the Government to greater energy in Egypt, and accused them of " drifting," when they ought to be strenuously shaping for themselves a difficult and delicate course. Sir Stafford Northcote also indicated his satisfac- tion that the surplus should be so small in the orthodox way, by expressing extreme gratification that there was to be any surplus at all ; rallied the Government on not having persuaded France that Free-trade was good for her, and re- marked sarcastically on the optimist view taken of the state of Ireland, by statesmen who felt it a subject of congratulation that matters there are now "somewhat better than they were at the very worst period during which the Government had ad- ministered the affairs of Ireland." Sir Stafford's speech was amazingly moderate on all subjects on which Lord Salisbury is amazingly extravagant, and was disposed to sensationalism on the one subject of Egypt, on which Lord Salisbury is dis- posed to advise the icing and febrifuge treatment.
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